RACE AND CIVILIZATION. 597 



of raising the intellect in some cases if we can not do it in all? The 

 harm is that yon manufacture idiots. Some of the peasantry are taught 

 to read and write, and the result of this burden which their fathers 

 bore not is that they become fools. I can not say this too plainly; an 

 Egyptian who has had reading and writing thrust on him is, in every 

 case that I have met with, halfwitted, silly, or incapable of taking care 

 of himself. His intellect and his health have been undermined and 

 crippled by the forcing of education. With the Copt this is quite 

 different; fathers have been scribes for thousands of years, and his 

 capacity is far greater, so that he can receive much more without dete- 

 rioration. Observation of these people leads to the view that the aver- 

 age man can not receive much more knowledge than his immediate 

 ancestors, Perhaps a quarter or a tenth more of ideas can be safely 

 put into each generation without deterioration of mind or body; but, at 

 the best, growth of the mind can in the average man be but by fractional 

 increments in each generation, and any large increase will surely be 

 deleterious to the average mind, always remembering that there are 

 exceptions both higher and lower. Such a result is only what is to be 

 expected when we consider that the brain is the part of man which 

 develops and changes as races reach a higher level, while the body 

 remains practically constant through ages. To expect the brain to 

 make sudden changes of ability would be as reasonable as to expect a 

 cart horse to breed racers, or a greyhound to tend sheep. Man mainly 

 develops by internal differences in his brain structures, as other ani- 

 mals develop by external differences in bones and muscles. 



What, then, it maybe asked, can be done to elevate other races? 

 How can we benefit them ? Most certainly not by Europeanizing them. 

 By real education, leading out the mind to a natural and solid growth, 

 much can be done; but not by enforcing a mass of accomplishments 

 and artificialities of life. The general impression in England is that 

 reading, writing, and arithmetic are the elements of education. They 

 might be so to us "in the foremost files of time," but they assuredly are 

 not so to other races. The complex ideas of connecting forms and 

 sounds is far too gre&t a step for many brains, and when we succeed, 

 to our delight, in turning out finished readers, Nature comes in with the 

 stern reply, "Of their children not one has been reared." Our bigoted 

 belief in reading and writing is not in the least justified when we look 

 at the mass of mankind. The exquisite art and noble architecture of 

 Mykeme, the undying song of Homer, the extensive trade of the 

 Bron:;e Age, all belonged to people who never read or wrote. At this 

 day some of my best friends, in Egypt, are happily ignorant of such 

 accomplishments, and assuredly I never encourage them to any such 

 useless waste of their brains. The great essentials of a valuable char- 

 acter — moderation, justice, sympathy, politeness and consideration, 

 quick observation, shrewdness, ability to plan and prearrange, a keen 

 sense of the uses and properties of things — all these are the qualities 

 on which I value my Egyptian friends, and such qualities are what 



